A strong Jackrabbit performance proved stronger than Saturday’s winds as SDSU men’s track returned home with numerous top-five finishes in USD Snowbird events. 

The meet also featured North Dakota and University of Nebraska Omaha. 

First place finishers included Drew Kraft, Jake Sanderson and Blair Seymour in the 1500-meter run, triple jump and javelin throw, respectively. 

The 1500-meter run included freshman Brendan Sage in second place, finishing just 1.23 seconds, behind Kraft at 4:05:15. In the 5,000-meter run, Sage finished fourth at 12:31:38 and Kraft fifth at 12:33:73. 

Sanderson took first the triple jump final with 46 feet, 11 3/4 inches.

The 200-meter dash brought three Jackrabbit sprinters into the top five. Marc Husman, Kory Kohlhof and Adam Halverson rounded out the top five with third, fourth and fifth, respectively. 

Senior and Brookings native, Ryan Schaefer posted a personal best of 15-1 in the pole vault, finishing fourth overall in the event. 

Blair Seymour won the javelin throw with a distance of 169-00. Following Seymour’s lead was USD’s Daquan Brooks at 157-09 and Josh Peterson at 125-07 to round out the top three. 

“We know where each other stands in conference rankings for each event which makes for an emotional race if you get the chance to race against a conference school.” Sage said. 

In The Summit League’s preseason poll ranking, the USD men weighed in at second and the Jacks in at third. Last year USD finished first and SDSU finished fourth. 

“As a team we did well by displaying multiple top finishes in each event and definitely gained fitness in the wind.” Sage said. 

The Jackrabbits travel next weekend to Sioux City, Iowa for the Sioux City Relays on Friday and Saturday and to Lincoln, Neb., for the Saturday’s Nebraska Quad.